World Report 2011 - Human Rights Watch

EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIAPolitical activists and bloggers Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade who were victimsof an apparently staged attack in July 2009 and subsequently convicted of hooliganismwere released in November 2010 after serving over half of their sentences.Several journalists suffered physical attacks by police and others; the governmentfailed to meaningfully investigate these incidents. In February a police officerattacked Leyla Ilgar, a correspondent for the Yeni Musavat newspaper, as shereported at a local market. Police interrogated her and deleted the photographsfrom her camera. In May police detained Seymur Haziev, a reporter for the Azadlignewspaper, at an opposition rally in Baku. Haziyev was questioned without hislawyer, charged with resisting arrest, and sentenced to seven days imprisonment.Haziyev reported that two officers kicked and hit him periodically during the interrogation.In July unidentified men attacked Elmin Badalov, a reporter for Yeni Musavat, andAnar Garayli, the deputy editor of Milli Yol, while they took photographs for aninvestigative story about luxury villas near Baku believed to be built by the transportationminister. In August an unidentified assailant stabbed Rasul Shukursoy,a sports writer for Komanda newspaper, in the arm. Shukursoy links the incidentto his article criticizing a famous football player.Police interfered with journalists’ efforts to document public protests. In June aspolice broke up a Baku demonstration by opposition party Musavat, they alsoshoved journalists and prevented them from filming. In July presidential administrationguards detained and erased the recordings of four journalists filming aprotest by Sabirabad region residents complaining about the government’sresponse to severe flooding in southern Azerbaijan.In May Baku airport security forced Norwegian journalist Erling Borgen to placehis camera and recorded DVD footage in his checked bags. Upon arrival in OsloBorgen discovered that all footage from his visit to Azerbaijan for a documentaryon Eynulla Fatullayev had disappeared.In February the parliament approved amendments to several laws that ban mediarepresentatives from videotaping, photographing, or audio recording without asubject’s prior knowledge or consent, except in “operative-investigative cases”399